A Colorado judge will allow prosecutors to interrogate theater gunman James Holmes using truth serum if he pleads not guilty by reason of insanity.

Holmes is the suspected gunman involved in the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado last July. Holmes has been charged with multiple counts of murder for the open shooting, which killed 12 people and injured another 58.

Colorado Judge William Sylvester ruled that prosecutors have the choice to use truth serum on Holmes in a "narcoanalytic interview" to determine whether or not he was legally insane during the July 20 shooting last year. But this is only if Holmes pleads not guilty by reason of insanity.

A plea of not guilty had been entered for Holmes yesterday after his lawyer said that the defendant was not ready to enter his own plea. Holmes can later change it.

Legal experts have questioned Judge Sylvester's ruling, saying that taking away the fifth amendment rights of the defendant because of an authorization to use truth serum drugs will raise a lot of fifth amendment-related issues.

Also, a jury may object to the court forcing truth serum upon the defendant.

Medical experts have weighed in as well, saying that the defendant still has the ability to lie while using truth serum. They also said that truth serum would be effective at determining Holmes' current state of mind, but a short-acting barbiturate like truth serum would not indicate his state of mind during last year's shooting. It will only loosen him up to talk about it.

"First of all, people can still lie under the influence of amytal," said Dr. August Piper, a psychiatrist from Seattle. "More importantly, the person under the influence of the drug is susceptible to outside suggestion. To try and do this would be unlikely to yield useful information, and could pervert the course of justice by rendering the defendant susceptible to pressure."

As much as I'd like to say "go ahead, do anything you want to this pos", I don't think the precedent being set here is worth the trade.

a. The drug isn't perfect. I don't ever want us to depend on something like that over hard evidence.b. The constitution has taken enough of a beating this last decade as it is. It may not be torture but it's clearly forcing someone to self-incriminate.

Bottom line, this guy is going away for life regardless. We're just deciding where he'll be. The consequences aren't worth it in this instance.

And that's the problem. We're doomed as a society and culture if people like this, who have done such unspeakable crimes, do not qualify for capital punishment.

quote: b. The constitution has taken enough of a beating this last decade as it is. It may not be torture but it's clearly forcing someone to self-incriminate.

How so? His guilt isn't in question. It's an absolute fact he did these crimes. All that's sought here is intent.

We need serious court reform and mandatory death-penalties for mass murderers. The "insanity" defense should be barred in cases like these, it's unacceptable. And anyone who kills that many people shouldn't be sitting in a prison waiting for parole, he should be dead.

quote: The consequences aren't worth it in this instance.

I wonder if the families of the victims, and those who were wounded and had their lives damaged forever, would agree. To some people this is more than just an Internet debate.

I'm not entertaining such illogical fantasies. It's a matter of cosmic fact that it's easier to destroy than to create. Keeping someone alive is expensive, killing them and throwing the body away, is not.

Ah, so you dismiss the link without even having looked at it because of its NAME. That's...logical. *rolls eyes*

Anyhow, great idea that about just taking every convicted murderer out back after the trial's concluded and hanging them on the spot there by the way - because we know everyone convicted of a crime is actually guilty of it, yes?

No, actually not. It is a known fact that a significant percentage of death row inmates are actually innocent. But hell, you want to make omelette, you gotta break some eggs, right?

According to the ACLU (one of those libbrul organizations one can simply dismiss, because they don't favor instant hangings and whatnot), one death row inmate has been released after new evidence proved their innocense for every eight prisoners executed, and that was numbers from back in the early 2000:s, we can expect that ratio to be even more significant today as DNA matching tech has improved and become more commonplace. That's an awful lot of eggs broken just to make omelette, don't you think?

Or do you even think? It seems you are entirely ruled by gut reaction and rightwing propaganda.

People who support capital punishment don't care if its cheaper or more expensive. Cost is just a liberal red hearring. There are some crimes that if you commit them society just doesn't need you around any more. I'ts the princple of this thing. You have to pay and society need to forget about you.

Im all for keeping the really crazy ones around for a little while incase the shrinks want to study them and think they can learn something. But when thats done they are still just old meat that need to be tossed away.

I just can't wrap my head around this. Capital punishment is barbaric... killing people is barbaric... You want to do to them the same thing that got them there in the first place. An eye for an eye, 'cause we all know that's a great philosophy. Saudi Arabia comes to mind, public beheadings...

The way you think, "old meat that needs to be tossed away" makes you just as sick in the head as the Aurora guy. After all, as someone already said on a post here, no one is innocent anyway, right? So it's not like he was killing innocent people... they had it coming anyway...

quote: I just can't wrap my head around this. Capital punishment is barbaric... killing people is barbaric... You want to do to them the same thing that got them there in the first place. An eye for an eye, 'cause we all know that's a great philosophy. Saudi Arabia comes to mind, public beheadings...

Hmmm, I don't know about "barbaric" or whether that's even important. What I do know is not all killings are the same. As I was trying to convey to Reclaimer "Motive matters", or if you will, context does. If you found someone hacking at your wife, daughter, whomever, with a meat cleaver would you hesitate to use any force, even deadly force, to stop them ? I suspect not. If that person dies as a result, I don't see any moral stigma attached to your actions (even if you still consider them barbaric).

When the State executes someone (ideally) it's not in the same context that the murder was. You may argue that it's unnecessary, perhaps that's true, but the point would be what is "just" punishment for the crime committed ? There is no logical answer to this question. There isn't some physical natural law that sets the standard. It's what you, I and everyone else decides is "just". We decide that some crimes are minor and others major and use some rationality to set the punishment proportionally. If murder is the worst crime, then the worst punishment would seem to be justified. Heck, we don't do the worst. You want barbaric, go back to what was done a some hundreds years ago. We don't draw and quarter people nor burn them at the stake.

As for SA, is the problem public executions or that the punishment is disproportional to the crime (by our standards) and the trial, and thus the guilt, very suspect ? If we are to execute people, then it should be public. Let's not hide form the people what's being done in their name and by their will.

quote: If you found someone hacking at your wife, daughter, whomever, with a meat cleaver would you hesitate to use any force, even deadly force, to stop them ? I suspect not. If that person dies as a result, I don't see any moral stigma attached to your actions (even if you still consider them barbaric).

You are correct on both counts. I'm having quite a hard time dealing with the cognitive dissonance triggered by your example, but hey I never said it was an easy situation to deal with (hypothetically).

Putting someone to death costs almost nothing. Putting in legal hurdles to prevent the death penalty from being a viable option is what makes it cost a lot of money. It's because of the bleeding hearts which feel they couldn't possibly live with the crushing guilt that one out of one million people might actually be innocent even following a thorough trial in front of a jury of their peers.

I can live with the guilt.

We all have a covenant with each other in this society of ours. You violate another's rights, you lose yours. And it is society's obligation to eliminate you as a possible source of further disruption to the collective harmony.

The US founding fathers would blanch at reading what you just spewed. It's not only diametrically opposed to all the values and ideals of the US constitution and bill of rights, it's also nothing but utter fascist crap. It's apologist claptrap of how the state should be allowed to execute innocent people just for the sake of upholding the system itself. How does that align with any view of what constitutes liberty and justice?

There is seriously something deeply, profoundly wrong with you. Even if your self-preservation instinct has been neutered enough that you'd say, "Hey, no biggie, I might be innocent but most people who get put to death aren't, so it's for the good of my country", I would venture to say that you speak for a very, very small percentage of human beings.

"Hey, I'm in the prime of my life, but sure, inject me with this lethal cocktail of drugs that might or might not be a painless way to die."

There are known cases where a person who was almost certainly wrongly convicted have been put to death. But hey, it's for the greater good, right?

People die in unfortuante tragedies all the time but we don't stop using cars or airplanes or stop giving cops guns. If there is an occasional tragety taking place in the jail system that is to be expected and is probably orders of magnuitude less common than all the other types of tragedies in our lives.

Some people need death and if you are too stupid to be that innocent guy standing over the body, holding the murder weapon, spraying your DNA all over the place, and talking yourself into handcuffs then maybe you need death too.

Then him...or me...or you...or someone else innocent would be dead, but so would a million people who deserve it so who cares. It sucks but the chances of it happening are small. Besides, have you looked around our country lately, nobody is completely innocent and most likely if you end up in that position you did something else that would probably warrant it anyways. If not, then you have terrible luck and it is just your time to go.

Yea, well that's not how this county was founded. This argument of, we're all guilty of something, is ridiculous. You're basically saying because I might have broke the speed limit its okay to charge me with murder. Because I'm not completely innocent.

> It's ridiculous to say that it's ok to slip one innocent person among one million criminals. What if that one person were you?

The major fault in this question is that the ratio is a hell of a lot higher than 1 in a million. I'm fully in favor of the use of capital punishment where warranted, but I cannot dismiss out of hand the rate of wrongful executions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_execution#Un..."Newly-available DNA evidence has allowed the exoneration and release of more than 15 death row inmates since 1992 in the United States,[4] but DNA evidence is available in only a fraction of capital cases." It goes on to note over 100 people in America have been exonerated after being placed on death row since 1976.

So to those who mocked your question - how many more than 15million people were sentenced to death since 1992? It would be surprising it it's less than 1 in 1000 that are falsely killed. And that's really a different game than "are you ok with 1 false killing in a million.'

1) Pre-Trial and Trial costs are the same regardless of final sentence.

2) The writ of Habeas Corpus is not a right limited to death row prisoners.

3) Cost of incarceration (1/4 of the cost) is a lot lower for death penalty cases seeing as the cost is a fixed amount per year and they spend fewer years incarcerated. In fact, assuming all other costs are valid, the fact that incarceration is 1/4 the cost of the death penalty in California (according to your link) suggests that once someone is incarcerated 4 times longer than the person who got the death penalty, he has become more costly than the death row prisoner.

I apologize if I'm misunderstanding something, but the page you link seems to make things quite clear right up front.

Those who primarily benefit are the masses of those innocently convicted of crimes they did not commit, because you can release an innocent man from jail, but you cannot release an innocent man from death.

He should be executed to help protect the public. There is no reason to keep a risky devil like this alive. Also as a citizen he is entitled to his sixth ammendment rights to a speedy trial (which should include his appeals.) That would also keep the costs down. Get in there, try him, judge all appeals, then shoot him, assuming he's found guilty. Then we could then use the 30,000 dollars a year to help save granny and fund medicare.

It's obvious that a mass murderer has no concern for his own life. If the fear of death will not dissuade someone from carrying out mass murder, what's the point of keeping that person around? After all, I'd hate for someone in an executive position to try to score political points.by using a reduction in the increase of a budget as an excuse to let one of these clowns go 10 years from now.

How is the insanity defence in this case unacceptable? Are you willing to argue this person, who killed 12 and wounded so much more in an attempt "just to kill more then brevik", can be sane in any shape manner or form?

And how is putting this guy down any justice to the victems hmm? He doesn't feel sorry because he doesn't know how to. Ending his life ends all possibility for him to ever be able to redeem himself so he might feel the guilt for what he has done. It never happening again is achieved by a life sentance as well as a death sentance so what's the difference?

And if he's really insane beyond repair, well then, is life or death the bigger punishment?

Indeed, you do need serious reform but it should be based on cold hard logic and reason, specifically NOT the emotions of the victems. Because their lifes have been affected by crazy, they're not thinking straight either.

What you will get now is people feeding off this kind of anger to remove all possible rights until it's too late. Now it's a mass murderer. Then it's a murderer. Then it's a rapist, then it's assault. Pretty soon you'll be shooting up that guy who smoked a sticky just to find out where he got it from. Why not? You're already perfectly willing to put those people in jail and ruin their entire life. The incarceration rate in the US is skyhigh (pun intended) because of it.

And hey, when you're already using truth serums might as well give them sedatives. He is a crazy mass murderer after all, better make sure he can't do anything including defending himself. That goes for those agressive prisoners too. Scumbags like him surely don't deserve a lawyer either, you said it yourself there's no question he did it. Hell why are we even bothering with a trail, we should've just sent a drone strike on the theatre while he was shooting!

The US JUSTICE system isn't called the US Revenge system. Justice isn't revenge. Justice is doing right by all. If you take away the ability for the perp to do right by the victems, there can never be justice.

quote: How is the insanity defence in this case unacceptable? Are you willing to argue this person, who killed 12 and wounded so much more in an attempt "just to kill more then brevik", can be sane in any shape manner or form?

The "insanity" plea is nothing but a ploy now to get a reduced sentence. He planned this crime for weeks. He carried it out. It was entirely premeditated an deliberate. This isn't someone who just went "insane" and isn't responsible for his actions. Nice try.

quote: And how is putting this guy down any justice to the victems hmm? He doesn't feel sorry because he doesn't know how to.

I think I'm going to do us both a favor and end this now. I'm clearly talking to an idiot with no concept of right or wrong.

quote: And hey, when you're already using truth serums might as well give them sedatives. He is a crazy mass murderer after all, better make sure he can't do anything including defending himself. That goes for those agressive prisoners too. Scumbags like him surely don't deserve a lawyer either, you said it yourself there's no question he did it. Hell why are we even bothering with a trail, we should've just sent a drone strike on the theatre while he was shooting!

Yes he had been planning this. It's a sign he wasn't suffering from temporary insanity at the time of the slaughter but rather, insanity for a period of time before it too.

I have no problem with a temporary insanity defense if a permanent insanity plea isn't possible, because it seems to match the crime. The problem I have is the differentiation in punishment, that I don't feel it is any less just to kill an insane person than a sane one.

I'd rather we didn't have capital punishment at all, rather that people guilty by reason of insanity are allowed to visit an in-house shrink once in a while during their normal stay in prison.

At the same time we need a competent shrink in there studying the guy so we can learn more about what makes him tick with the hope this information can be useful in the future.

We practically don't already. How many people were executed last year again?

quote: It's a sign he wasn't suffering from temporary insanity at the time of the slaughter but rather, insanity for a period of time before it too.

That's your opinion. I don't think you're even qualified to make such an assessment anyway.

quote: At the same time we need a competent shrink in there studying the guy so we can learn more about what makes him tick with the hope this information can be useful in the future.

That's the dumbest thing I've heard today. If he's "insane", then we won't learn any more from studying him than the thousands of other "insane" people available to study. And we certainly won't make any inroads into mental health.

Look it's this simple: When you plan on taking the lives of dozens, even hundreds of people, and carry that plan out you should be executed for it.

quote: Oh yeah, 'cause China is so much better off, executing thousands of people each year... I feel safer already...

????

Are you seriously making this comparison? I offer you the opportunity to realize how fucking retarded what you just said is, and how big a Red Herring, before I elaborate and tear you a new asshole for it.

Um, yeah. IANAL but as far as I can tell this is guaranteed to undermine the whole trial against him - guaranteed grounds for appeal, and there is no way that this would stand in the SCOTUS. And if it did... goodbye Constitution.

I honestly think this is one of those cases where they just go ahead and execute him for the act, never mind the reason. This clearly wasn't someone sending him in to do it for money or other exterior motive. I'm sure reason has nothing to do with in the end.

Fair trial should be given don't get me wrong, but don't they have this guy on camera, as well as arrested him "red handed"?

I'm glad that we all have a right to due process and that no exceptions are made. To me, this shows that the system still stands for something. Other than to pander to those that have knee jerk emotional reactions.